Glossary of Dedicated Server Hosting

ASP.NET: Originally called ASP+. The next generation of Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP).

Bandwidth: The amount data you can transfer from one point to another in a given time period.

Blog: Short for weblog. A personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.

Browser: The software you use to access the Internet. Examples include Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

C++: An object-oriented programming (OOP) language that is used to create large-scale applications.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface): A protocol that interfaces application software with a web server (or other type of server).

Cloud: On-demand access over Internet infrastructure to shared or virtualized resources such as applications and storage. The hosted IT services can scale dynamically to increase resources due to business fluctuations.

Colocation (or co-location) hosting: Hosting where you own the hardware, but you rent space in a data center (or colocation facility) for Internet connectivity and networking.

Control Panel: The software that lets you access and manage your hosting account. This is where you create mailboxes, set up your message forwarding, upload and edit files, etc.

Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs): The unique TLD (or domain suffix/extension) for individual countries, which is usually a two-letter abbreviation for the country. Find your country code.

Cybersquatter: The illegal act of buying or registering domain names with intent to profit from another company’s existing trademark or image.

Daemon: An application or utility that runs in the background on the server.

Dedicated Hosting: The exclusive use of a dedicated appliance/server by just one person or business (as opposed to shared hosting).

Domain Name: An Internet address as recognized by a web browser. When combined with a web hosting service to create a website, the domain name is integrated into a URL to become that website’s name (as opposed to its IP address, which serves more as a location). See URL for more info.

Domain Name System (DNS): A hierarchical naming system that maintains a relationship between IP addresses and domain names by “translating” IP addresses into the more readable domain names that users enter into their browsers.

Domain Parking: A convenient way to hold or “park” domain name(s) that aren’t being actively used. Parking that uses a placeholder featuring ads is called “monetized” domain parking.

eCommerce (or e-commerce): A term meaning electronic shopping or commerce via the internet.

Email or (e-mail): Electronic mail. A means of communication that transfers electronic messages from an outbox on one computer to the inbox of another.

Expired Domain: A domain on which the paid-for period has ended without the owner submitting payment for the next term (although there is a grace period allowing the owner to renew for a short time before the name expires). Upon expiration, the name is once more placed into the pool of available names.

Favicon: An icon associated with a particular website or webpage. Short for “favorites icon” and less commonly known as a website icon or bookmark icon. This is the icon you see in the URL address bar displayed by most web browsers.

Fedora: A Linux based operating system that is one of the free projects that were derived from the RedHat operating system.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP): A method for transferring data on the Internet, FTP servers allow a user to connect to allocated file storage locations that can be accessed remotely from other computers.

Firewall: A protective program or appliance that controls and filters all incoming and outgoing traffic on a server or network.

Forwarding: The process of automatically redirecting email (email forwarding) or web traffic (URL forwarding) from one location to another.

FreeBSD: An advanced operating system derived from BSD, the version of UNIX developed at the University of California, Berkeley (Free-Berkley-Standard-Distribution)

FrontPage: A Microsoft web development application

Gateway: See Payment Gateway.

Generic TLDs (gTLDs): Basic, commonly used TLDs that can be registered by any individual, no matter what type of business (or lack thereof) that individual may have.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD): The mechanism that controls the positioning, reading, and writing of the hard disk, which furnishes the largest amount of data storage for the PC or server.

Hardware: Tangible, physical objects like disks, disk drives, display screens, keyboards, printers, boards, and chips. This also includes appliances like firewalls and routers.

Hold Status: A specific domain status that prevents the name from being modified or deleted. Typically this occurs toward the end)of the expiration grace period.

Hosting: See Web Hosting.

HTTPS: A secure, SSL-enabled version of HTTP.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): The language used to write websites and website pages and determine how they will appear on screen. HTML-format pages typically appear with the file extension .html or .htm.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): The protocol that dictates the transfer of information on the Internet. A technical term for defining how data is transferred.

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics): A standard electronic interface used between a computer motherboard and the computer’s disk drives.

IIS (Internet Information Services): A group of Microsoft Windows Internet services, including a Web server or Hypertext Transfer Protocol server and a File Transfer Protocol server.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): The non-profit organization that manages the assignment and regulation of domain names and IP addresses on behalf of the U.S. government.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): A business that provides internet connectivity to residential or commercial customers, most commonly via cable, high-speed DSL circuit, or dial-up.

IP Address: A string of numbers describing a server’s physical location on the World Wide Web. Whereas a domain name is an address designed for ease-of-use with Internet browsing, an IP address is meant more for geographic organizational purposes.

Java: A programming language expressly designed for use on any type of computer architecture or operating system (Windows/MAC/Linux).

JDK (Java Development Kit): A program development environment for writing Java applets and applications.

Joomla: A free, open source content management system written with PHP for publishing content on the Internet, using the MySQL database.

Linux®: An open-source operating system software used to operate a computer or server. There are many variations of Linux offered by different vendors and developers, including Fedora, RedHat, CentOS, Debian and many more.

Load Balancing: Dividing the amount of work that a computer has to do between two or more computers. These devices are typically used by server administrators to provide a single Internet service from multiple servers.

Merchant Account: A commercial bank account set up between a retail business and a financial institution that allows a business to accept credit card transactions from customers.

MIME (Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions): An extension of the original Internet e-mail protocol that lets people use the protocol to exchange different kinds of data files on the Internet.

MySQL: An open-source, relational database management system that’s essentially a multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. Used to power high-volume websites and more resource-intensive critical business systems. See also SQL.

Name Server: Also known as a domain name server. Directs internet traffic from domain names to their corresponding IP addresses.

Operating System: The program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer.

Packet:: The unit of data that is routed between an origin and a destination on the Internet.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC): A type of search marketing where advertisers page a set amount each time their ad is clicked on. These are often displayed as “sponsored links”.

Payment Gateway: Acts as an intermediary between the merchants’ shopping cart and all the financial networks involved with the transaction, including the customers’ credit card issuer and your merchant account.

PHP (Hypertext Pre-Processor): A scripting language usually embedded into HTML used most frequently to generate dynamic page content or send and receive cookies.

phpMyAdmin: A tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web.

POP3: Electronic mail protocol used to retrieve messages stored on a separate server.

Processor (CPU): The logic circuitry that responds to and processes the basic instructions that drive a computer.

Protocol: The special set of rules that end points in a telecommunication connection use when they communicate.

Python: A free, open-source, cross-platform programming language that has gained popularity because of its clear syntax and readability.

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks): A method of spreading information across several disks to achieve higher transfer speed and to enable security and quick recoverability in case of hard-disk crashes.

RAM (Random Access Memory): The place in a computer where the active files of the operating system and application programs in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer’s processor.

RedHat: A Linux based operating system distribution.

Registrant: The party that legally owns a domain name.

Registrar: A party that has been given permission by ICANN to register domain names on behalf of a registrant.

Registry: A domain name database containing information such as registrant, name, expiration, etc. for every domain name that registry is assigned to.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface): Known as “skuzzy.” A high quality hard drive that transfers information at faster rates, and is more flexible than IDE.

Search Engine: A website that serves as an Internet “search” provider, such as Google, MSN, Ask.com, or Yahoo.

Search Engine Marketing: The process of improving a website’s status in major search engines via both paid and organic search terms.

Search Engine Optimization: The process of improving a website’s status in major search engines, with the goal of getting a website to the top of the organic (non-sponsored) results.

Second Level Domain: The part of a domain name immediately preceding the TLD. In www.codero.com, the word codero is the second-level domain. It contains the name or central theme of the entire site.

Shared Hosting: Hosting in which a web server hosts websites for more than one person or business (as opposed to dedicated hosting).

Shopping Cart: A web-based application that lets you enable online shopping on your website, so that customers can make purchases via your site.

SSI (Server-Side Include): A variable value that a server can include in an HTML file before it sends it to the requestor.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer): A protocol that encrypts and protects sensitive information when submitted for e-commerce transactions (such as credit card numbers). SSL addresses are usually identifiable with the 'https' prefix.

Subdomain: Individual Web addresses built upon a pre-existing domain name.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): The basic communication language or protocol of the Internet.

Terminal Server: A server program running on a Windows operating system that provides the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Windows desktop to user terminals that don’t have this capability themselves.

TLD (Top Level Domain): The industry term for domain name suffixes like .com and .org. There are two main classifications: Generic TLDs, and Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs).

Tomcat: An application server from the Apache Software Foundation that executes Java servlets and renders Web pages that include Java Server Page coding.

Transfer: See bandwidth.

Transfer (Domain Name transfer): The process(es) that determines how control of a domain name may be transferred to a new owner.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): The identifier for locating sites on the Internet, also called the web address. Typically a domain name with http:// preceding it; for example, www.codero.com is a domain name, and http://www.codero.com is that domain name’s URL.

Webmin: A web-based interface (control panel) for system administration for Unix that supports tables and forms (and Java for the File Manager module), you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing, etc.

Website: The most basic term for the identity of a web address, a website is a collection of web pages residing on a Web server, accessible through an Internet browser. Usually the collected pages of one domain name, a website can (and often does) encompass more than a single domain name.

Whois: A database that indexes information about domain names and their registrants, such as owners, expiration dates, points of contact, etc. Whois is also a tool/command used for accessing these various databases to find contact information on the owners and managers of various domain names.

Windows®: Computer and server operating system from Microsoft.

WWW: World Wide Web

XML (Extensible Markup Language): A flexible way to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, etc.